SOURCE: "Sources of Happiness," in Books and Bookmen, No. 365, March, 1996, pp. 24-5.

[In the essay below, Hogan reflects on Lavin's works and concludes that the overall mood of her stories and novels is agnostic.]

A fitting introduction to the work of Mary Lavin might be an emblem from a mesmeric and lonely short story by a contemporary of Mary Lavin, 'The Bride of the Innisfallen' by Eudora Welty, a story of journeying and estrangement and newness, the newness of place, and the newness of self away from familiar surroundings and ingrained relationships. 'You must never betray pure joy the kind you were born and began with either by hiding it or by parading it in front of people's eyes; they didn't want to be shown it. And still you must tell it.' With the republication by Virago in April of Mary Lavin's second and last novel Mary...